^B{^#!16!29 December^N! Feast day of St Thomas of Canterbury, St Ebrulf or Evroult, St Trophimus of Arles, and St Maroellus Akimetes.
^B{1170^B} St Thomas à Becket, the 40th Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in his own cathedral by four knights acting on Henry II's orders. ^B{1860^B} HMS ^I{Warrior^I}, Britain's first seagoing iron-clad warship, was launched. ^B{1890^B} The massacre at Wounded Knee, the last major battle between Native American Indians and US troops, took place. ^B{1895^B} The Jameson Raid from Mafikeng into Transvaal, which attempted to overthrow Kruger's Boer government, started. ^B{1911^B} Sun Yat-sen became the first president of a republican China, following the Revolution. ^B{1989^B} Following Hong Kong's decision to forcibly repatriate some Vietnamese refugees, thousands of Vietnamese 'boat people' battled with riot police.
^B{^I{^#!14!Born ^N}Marquise de Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV, ^B{1721^B}; Charles Goodyear, US inventor, ^B{1800^B}; William Gladstone, English statesman, ^B{1809^B}; Pablo Casals, Spanish cellist, ^B{1876^B}; Jon Voight, US film actor, ^B{1938^B}; Marianne Faithfull, English singer and actress, ^B{1946^B}.
^B{^I{^#!14!Died ^N}Thomas Sydenham, English physician, ^B{1689^B}; Jacques Louis David, French painter, ^B{1825^B}; Christina Georgina Rossetti, English poet, ^B{1894^B}; Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet, ^B{1926^B}; James Fletcher Henderson, US jazz pianist and composer, ^B{1952^B}; Harold Macmillan, British politician, ^B{1986^B}.
